B8 







fj.iJi^oi^lg'SI 



ANNUAL 

DISCOURSE 

DELIVERED BEFORE 
THE 

HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

OF 

PENNSYLVANIA, 

OCTOBER 24, 1831. 



'/ 



BY JOB R. TYSON, ESQ. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

E. L. CAREY & A. S. HART. 
Mifflin 8c Parry, Printers. 

1831. 



V 



V (50 



At a meeting of "The Historical Society of Penn- 
sylvania," held at Philadelphia, on the 24th day of 
October, 1831, it was 

Resolved, That the acknowledgments of the So- 
ciety are due, and they are hereby presented to 
Job R. Tyson, Esquire, for his instructive and able 
discourse this day pronounced, and that he be desir- 
ed to furnish a copy for publication. 
From the minutes. 

T. M. PETTIT, 
Secretary, pro tern. 



ANNUAL mSCOUESK, 



Gentlemen op the Historical Society: — 

The honour which you have conferred upon me in 
the invitation to deliver your Annual Discourse, 
cannot but excite a lively anxiety and deep solicitude. 
To say that I distrust my ability to meet the most mo- 
derate expectations which may be formed, would but 
feebly express the sensations of diffidence with which 
the task is undertaken. These apprehensions are in 
no degree diminished by the recollection of the learn- 
ed and distinguished gentlemen who have preceded 
me in the performance of this duty; nor by a refer- 
ence to the fact that the most splendid and captivating 
portions of Pennsylvania story, have been appropri- 
ated in a manner which renders a further attempt at 
elucidation alike presumptuous and unnecessary. Re- 
lying however upon the favourable consideration 
which your selection bespeaks, I shall throw myself 
upon your indulgence while surveying a period 
which from its recency, its importance, and the 
moral fruits it has produced, must ever challenge 
the admiration of civilized and enlightened man. 

It 



Whatever attractions the early history of provin- 
cial Pennsylvania may present^ the period of the 
revolution is big with wonders, whether we regard 
it in relation to the events which occurred and the 
impression it has produced, or as the era for the es- 
tablishment of a new and independent government 
and the principles which thence emerged into 
practice. The patriarchal government of Penn, 
which excluded all commotions save occasional con- 
troversies terminating at most in an angry debate or 
a copious effusion of ink, gave place to a scene which 
was at once novel and perilous. Pennsylvania was 
not unacquainted with the foundations of her politi- 
cal rights, nor was she wanting in moral courage to 
assert and sustain them. Her enlightened freemen 
were sensible, that as the Charter of the Province 
emanated from the Royal prerogative, an attempt to 
impose burdens by the authority of Parliament was a 
palpable and unrighteous usurpation. The spirit 
which was kindled at this appearance of oppression, 
was the same spirit of liberty which, under another 
form, had resisted the encroachments of proprietary 
privilege, and manifested itself from the earliest stage 
of our provincial existence, in a noble jealousy for 
those immunities which were originally reserved in 
the social compact. It was that identical spirit which, 
whether true or false, examined with scrutiny the 
acts of Penn and his successors, and submitted to 
nothing which bore the least semblance of political 



^nci'oachment or violated law. But when the flame 
of the revolution burst out, it was a wordy alterca- 
tion no longer. The proprietary and popular par- 
ties crumbled into embers; — old feelings, antipathies, 
and prejudices ceased — or were so modified and 
changed that the traces of former differences were 
entirely obliterated. New views and opinions — 
hatreds more embittered, and friendships more deep- 
ly rooted — with their train of consequences, succeed- 
ed. It cannot be surprising, that on a question so 
momentous as that which involved the sudden dis- 
ruption of political ties, there should be diversities of 
sentiment ; nor that with a people who had enjoyed 
almost without interruption the pleasures of peace, 
there should be felt a repugnance to war. Attach- 
ment to the parent country as well as to existing es- 
tablishments, was natural where both are recommend- 
ed by the recollections of a free and happy ancestry, 
sanctified as these are by all those associations which 
render them endearing. If tyranny had left its im- 
press upon domestic happiness or interfered with the 
civil immunities of the people, the passions of resent- 
ment and animosity might easily have been excited 
into action. But the war of the revolution was essen- 
tially a war of principle, less for injuries inflicted 
which could be felt, than in anticipation of evils that 
were meditated or intended. In a contest of such a na- 
ture, which appeals only to the higher sentiments of 
enlightened reason; in a quarrel upon a provocation 



scarcely affecting the rights of property, and not 
violating those of persons ; it requires an elevation 
of moral character, an energy of political principle 
to enter the arena. To perceive abstract truth as 
reflecting men, and to reason upon indications as 
practical philosophers, is seldom given to a commu- 
nity at large. No higher evidences can be demand- 
ed of the moral and intellectual superiority of Penn- 
sylvania and the other colonies, than the determined 
union of all classes against a gigantic power, for the 
purpose of effecting the recision of a law, which, in 
its operation, was hardly perceptible. 

Numerous, however, as were the adherents to 
the cause, and firm as were most in their alle- 
giance to liberty, the feeling in Pennsylvania was 
not universal; and some from inveterate attach- 
ment to England, and more from the inflexibility 
of religious opinions, refused all participation. Fac- 
tions of course, in a brief period, arose; and the 
whigs were sufficiently proscriptive to denounce 
as tories all who did not join the belligerent par- 
ty. The Friends or Quakers, who formed the 
largest portion of those who declined, were inimical 
to war upon a ground of religious belief, that non- 
resistance was a cardinal duty. But the furious spi- 
rit of the times was unable to brook any appearance 
of neutrality — they were upbraided as tories or stig- 
matized as traitors, and two individuals were doomed 



to the sacrifice. Let me not be understood as re- 
llecting censure upon the court which pronounced 
their culpability, nor as questioning the expediency 
of measures of sufficient rigour to paralize any ten- 
dency which may have appeared to insurrection and 
rebellion. Situated as was the country in a war, the 
unfortunate issue of which would have degraded and 
ruined those who fomented it, it was necessary for the 
purposes of example, to restrain a spirit which no 
doubt existed, destructive of the high-minded pa- 
triotism and chivalrous designs of its magnanimous 
leaders. But this spirit was con jfined to a few. Its 
prevalence was naturally magnified at a stormy period, 
when * the approach of tyranny,' as Burke expresses 
it, ^was snuffed in every tainted breeze,' and sectarian 
scruples had the opprobrious and alarming name of 
popular defection. Subsequent writers, particularly 
those of other states, have tried the virtue of repeti- 
tion to perpetuate the error. Those of the Quakers 
who are obnoxious to the censure of actively oppos-^ 
ing the colonies, or secretly abetting the enemy, are 
freely surrendered to just scorn and merited repro- 
bation. But the number is diminutive, and itshould 
no more be visited upon the sect at large than upon 
the reputation of the colony that was so unfortunate 
as to own them. If, as it has been contended, a spi- 
rit of opposition was more extensively discernible 
among the Quakers than among the other religious 
sects, it is rather attributable to a false application of 



10 

fundamental principles than to the influence of affec- 
tion for the parent country. As Christians they be- 
lieved themselves bound to the preservation of peace, 
and the notion of considering an existing government 
in the light of an ordinance of God, worthy of obe- 
dience where it is just, and to be quietly submitted 
to where it is inequitable, involved the necessity of 
their taking no part in the quarrel.* Whatever may 
have been the sentiments entertained of Great Bri- 
tain in attempting to tax the colonies without their 
consent, it would have been incapable, upon the 
ground they assumed, to influence their demeanour 
in reference to either of the conflicting parties. They 
were constrained to stand aloof from both, or which 
was tantamount in their estimation, their acts of 
friendship for one or the other, had no relation to the 
position of either, considered as belligerents. It pre- 
sents a striking analogy to the case of oaths, which, 
independently of the truth of the testimony, as they 
are held by the Quakers to be forbidden, must in any 
event be peremptorily declined. In the extensive 
diffusion of the fact, that the Quakers as a body, did 
not participate in a sanguinary conflict, it seems to 
have been too frequently forgotten, that the business 
of a soldier is totally inconsistent with Quakerism, 
and that its assumption would imply the dereliction 
of a testimony which they hold to be sacred. Com- 
mon justice requires that as well the reasons of their 

* Vide Appendix, Note 1. 



11 

abstinence should be known, as that their forbearance 
was reciprocal, and only amounted to a strict and ri- 
gid neutrality. 

Other circumstances have contributed to the perpe- 
tuation of this injustice, than those to which I have 
ventured incidentally to allude. The national feel- 
ing which was engendered by Pennsylvania's being 
the principal theatre of war — by being the locality 
of the first Congress — and by being the place whence 
emanated the Declaration of Independence — almost 
absorbed provincial attachments and local sympa- 
thies. Sectional predilections were exchanged for 
the brighter and more transcendant glory of the 
whole confederacy. The wise providence of her 
sisters in arms, while animated by the patriotic fire 
which sought to destroy the pretensions of l^ritain 
over the Union, did not permit them to be frigid 
upon the subject of their own reputations. They 
have blazoned their exploits in a hundred narratives 
and histories, and perhaps too sedulous of fame, have 
sometimes despoiled Pennsylvania of the laurels by 
which her brow should be adorned. Not content 
with assuming merits and gallantry which, perhaps, 
they legitimately claim, the disposition has been fre- 
quently observed to filch from Pennsylvania some of 
^ the mighty meed of liei^ large honours,' by attribut- 
ing to cowardice or toryism the effect of religious 
tenets, and by ascribing to the state at large the dis- 



12 

affection of a few. During all this period — a period 
beyond half a century — we have so far acquiesced 
in the justice of these reproaches as to maintain the 
profoundest silence; and though vii-es acquirunt eun- 
do, not a production has appeared which aspires to 
the dignity of defending the purity and patriotism 
of her course by an authentic narrative. The mate- 
rials for a history lie scattered in the richest profu- 
sion over works which, to the burning shame of our 
patriotic sensibilities, be it spoken, are seldom ex- 
amined. That part of our story which is interwoven 
with the country, is accessible in every form in which 
it can be presented, by compilations of original docu- 
ments — the attraction of personal memoirs — and the 
graver productions of elaborate histories. But where 
are the narratives of Pennsylvania in particular, sub- 
sequent to the year 1775? The total absence of any 
sober and authentic development of her transactions, 
sufferings, and services, has not been without its ef- 
fects upon the currency of opinions involving the de- 
triment of her revolutionary fame. Of the two his- 
tories which are extant, the one by Proud nominally 
terminates in 1770, and that by Gordon ends with the 
year 1775. It was reserved to Ebeling, a German, to 
illustrate the stirring events of the revolution, and to 
deduce our domestic annals to a recent period. 
This work, so little known to English readers 
except that small portion of it which is seen 
through the medium of an excellent translation by 



13 

the venerable Duponceau, terminates in 1802. 
However worthy of commendation it may be re- 
garded, considered in the light of a literary produc- 
tion, it was intended only to be general and succinct^ 
and is the composition of a foreigner, who, removed 
from the scene of action and partaking of little of 
the spirit of the times, must frequently be at a loss 
to account for obvious occurrences, and can impart to 
the subject little of that glowing interest of which, 
in the hands of an American, it is naturally suscept- 
ible. Just thoughts and harmonious periods can 
scarcely compensate for the absence of that vis vi- 
vida with which it should be drawn and coloured. 
The amusing and vivacious memoir by Graydon, is 
too loose in its facts and too rambling in their devel- 
opment and discussion, to supply so serious a desi- 
deratum. 

The absence of a formal history during and since 
the revolution, has not only proved injurious to the 
fame of our civic patriotism, but it conveys a really 
mortifying reflection upon our indilTerence to na- 
tional glory. From the labours of tliis society; the 
accumulations of Mr. Hazard; and the curious re- 
searches of Mr. Watson; the historian can labour 
under no paucity of materials. The selection of an 
individual who is competent to such a task, by the 
charms of an elegant and finished English style — by 
philosophical studies — by liberal and enlarged views 

c 



-is a matter of very general, even public con- 
cern. The reputation of a country and the moral 
influence of her example upon her cotempo- 
raries and posterity, must essentially depend upon 
the ability of her historians. How can the one or 
the other of these be effected, but through the me- 
dium of a performance whose intrinsic and superior 
merits shall command the esteem of other countries 
and of other times? The brilliancy of great events, 
or the glare of imposing successes and dismal catas- 
trophes, is not necessary to the preservation of a 
people's memory or the perpetuity of a people's 
influence. The nation whose opening effulgence 
and meridian splendour are embalmed in the pages 
of a Livy, and whose decrepitude and decline are 
recorded by the pen of a Tacitus, is less indebted 
for her fame to the power of her arms and the wis- 
dom of her counsels than to the elegance of lier his- 
torical authors. Would not the bays of ancient 
Greece long since have been faded or obscured, if 
the genial and kindly influences of Homer, Hero- 
dotus, and Thucydides had been withdrawn? Such 
events as the Persian and Peloponnesian wars and 
the expeditions of Alexander, which comprise the 
principal exploits of that celebrated people during 
the lapse of three centuries — illustrious as they are, — 
may have been surpassed by nations whose memory, 
not perpetuated by genius, is lost in the mists of 
remote antiquity. A smile may perhaps be excited 



15 

at an allusion to the ever enduring fame of Greece 
and Rome, witli relation to the domestic transactions 
of Pennsylvania; but it would not be improper be- 
fore the contemptuousness of ridicule be indulged 
that our history, before, during, and since the revo- 
lution, be fairly examined and truly known. Genu- 
ine philosophy unfettered by the trammels of educa- 
tion and uninfluenced by eclat, will coolly scan 
premises and investigate facts, before she will pro- 
nounce a decisive judgment. In imitating this 
prudence let us be guided by no blind or vainglo- 
rious partiality, but contemplate with calmness, 
some of the broad lines of the image which it will 
be the duty of our historians to exhibit. 

It is not my intention here to advert to her early 
history, nor to refer to the noble-minded pioneers 
of the wilderness to descry the germ of a race, des- 
tined to an elevation of fortune remarkable through- 
out future time. I am to speak of her history from 
that period when her existence as a separate nation 
commenced — when there was a dissolution of former 
ties — and when new sympathies and connexions 
sprang into being. The revolution in Pennsylvania, 
by a self-devotion to the cause which could only 
have originated in the conviction of its justice, was 
marked by domestic distresses, both personal and 
pecuniary, which would have cooled the ardour of 
any people in whose breasts liberty was not an 



16 

unextinguishable principle. The general destitu- 
tion and unfitness for war, has been well described 
by the Canada Major in Graydon, that we possessed 
''^commissaries without provisions; quarter masters 
without stores; generals without troops; and troops 
without discipline." Notwithstanding all these 
motives to despondency, which from the actual 
presence of the enemy must have operated more di- 
rectly in Pennsylvania than in the sister colonies, 
tlie flame that was kindled diffused itself with 
incredible rapidity, and burnt with a bright and 
constant lustre. She offered herself for immolation 
upon the altar of liberty, and was a consenting victim 
to the sacrifice, if it should be necessary to the sal- 
vation of the country. But though the revolution 
itself, both for the purposes of truth in the removal 
of unmerited obloquy, and the exhibition of our 
civic spirit under the pressure of calamitous times, be 
a glorious theme for historical narrative and com- 
mentary, yet it is but an epoch whence commences 
a new order of things equally calculated to elicit the 
admiration of the world. 

The Congress of the United Colonies, having de- 
clared their independence, recommended by a mani- 
festo that conventions should be held to establish 
their respective governments upon a republican 
basis. The same month witnessed a compliance 
with the recommendation by Pennsylvania, and the 



17 

Constitution of '76 which was the consequence, 
recognised those great principles of political right 
whichj in all natural codes, must be regarded as 
fundamental. Four years afterwards, in further vin- 
dication of those immunities which, in common with 
the confederated colonies, she had solemnly declared 
were inalienable, means were taken to annihilate the 
odious incongruity of legal bondage by conferring 
upon negroes and mulattoes, the boon of liberty and 
the privilege of denization. It may create surprise 
that this act of justice was so long delayed, but the 
extensive prevalence of slavery seems to have ren- 
dered our commonly just and clear-sighted progeni- 
tors, for a long period, indifferent to its flagrant 
inconsistency and odiousness. Even a majority of 
the quaker sect so late as the year 1688, declined 
responding to the sentiment entertained by a num- 
ber of their brethren in Germantown, that slavery 
was inconsistent with the Christian faith; and it was 
not until 1696 that Keith and his adherents de- 
nounced the institution as unjust and irreligious. 
As soon as its impropriety became apparent, this 
great object employed the pens and tongues of our 
philanthropists with the fervour and animation of 
a good cause, and all who have investigated the his- 
tory of its progress will ascribe to the efforts of 
Friends successively aided by Southeby, Sandiford, 
Lay, Wool man, and Benezet, the merit of its final 
accomplishment.* 

* Vide Appendix, Note 2. 



18 

Soon after the struggle had terminated by the 
recognition of independencej Pennsylvania, true to 
the principles of her early policy, began to remodel 
her civil jurisprudence by rendering it more conso- 
nant with the suggestions of unsophisticated reason, 
and the practical doctrines of modern times. The 
common and statute law of England blended to- 
gether as they are — administered in different tribu- 
nals under the guidance of different and conflicting 
principles — and handed down from ages character- 
ized by quaintness and absurdity — was thought in 
many of its features to be unsuitable to a country 
whose political maxims and forms of government 
were so contrariant and dissimilar. By virtue of 
the charter granted by Charles 2nd to William 
Penn, the criminal code and those civil regulations 
of Great Britain which were applicable to the con- 
dition of a new country, were to prevail till changed 
by the colonial legislature. Numerous alterations 
were made, which display the republican tendencies 
of the province, and the views that were enter- 
tained in relation to the laws of England. The 
refusal to erect a Court of Chancery; the destruction 
of the rule of primogeniture; the declaring of navi- 
gable rivers public highways; the provisions in re- 
lation to wills and testaments and the registry of 
deeds and mortgages; altered the complexion of the 
English code in most of its distinguishing features. 
It was not deemed necessary, immediately after the 



19 

I'evoliition, to do more tlian re-enact what had 
existed before, and to leave to observation and ex- 
perience the labour of correcting further impro- 
prieties and abuses. By the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence the force of British authority as such, was 
destroyed in the United Colonies, and of course 
British adjudications made subsequent to the 4th of 
July, 1776, had no validity in our Courts of Justice. 
The improvements since introduced into this state, 
are so numerous and various that it would require a 
volume to define and expound them with that per- 
spicuity and precision which the magnitude of the 
subject implies. Suffice it that the abscision of that 
chain of legal figments which are requisite to sus- 
tain the action of ejectment in England — the intro- 
duction of short pleading — the permission to file a 
plain statement of the cause of action in lieu of a 
technical declaration — the ample provisions which 
liave been made for amicable and compulsory arbi- 
tration — and the ingraftment of the principles of 
scientific equity into the body of the Common Law, — 
have contributed to render the forms of our juris- 
prudence less entangled and perplexed to the 
popular vision, and more conformable to the common 
sense of mankind. In the prosecution of that re- 
form whose spirit is so observable in each successive 
act of the legislature, it would not be surprising if a 
great and fundamental change should be made in 
the administration of civil justice. Without ven- 



20 

tiiring to express an opinion whether codification so 
popular at the present day, should be ultimately- 
adopted or be really desirable, we may confidently 
leave it to the very able jurists, to whose hands is 
committed the preparation of a modified system. 
As it stands with all its imperfections, it has re- 
ceived the involuntary homage of English lawyers, 
in the proposition to transfer without acknowledg- 
ment, many of its provisions into their own jurispru- 
dence. The most beautiful feature in the scheme 
perhaps, is the combination of the rules of Chancery 
with the doctrines of the Common Law, by which 
most of the benefits of equity proceeding, are 
realized and secured without any of the inconve- 
niences arising from a separation of the two juris- 
dictions. The origin of this incorporation has been 
ascribed to the establishment of a provincial judica- 
ture which, in the year 1684, amalgamated the prin- 
ciples of both. No evil should be more vigilantly 
guarded against, than opposition in the sentiments of 
a community to the legal system; and what has a 
stronger tendency to create disrepute than the 
spectacle of two tribunals, acting upon inimical prin- 
ciples and arriving at opposite results? The max- 
ims which govern a court of Equity are frequently 
incompatible with the rigid doctrines of the Com- 
mon Law, and the decrees of the Chancellor are 
sometimes found in direct contravention of the de- 
cisions of the ordinary tribunals. It has been the 
difficult task of our judiciary slightly assisted by the 



21 

legislature, to reconcile these discordant elements, 
and to reduce them into a harmonious union. 

By a long succession of decisions the two have 
been combined upon systematic rules, adequate to 
almost every emergency, and yet not encroaching 
upon the established landmarks of the law. The 
chancery powers to perpetuate testimony; to obtain 
evidence out of the state; to superintend the persons 
and property of non compos me?itis; and to compel 
indirectly the specific performance of a contract; are 
powers in habitual exercise, and all except the last, 
conferred by the Constitution. It is true, we do not 
possess the chancery appeal to the co7iscience of a 
defendant, except so far as relates to affidavits of de- 
fence; nor the prohibitory writ of injunction, except 
the legislative writ qK estrepemcnt issued during the 
pendency of an ejectment to prevent the commission 
of waste. But the loss of these is seldom felt in prac- 
tice, since they are partly supplied by the provisions 
referred to, and the flexible nature of the system it- 
self which would, no doubt, enable the Court to apply 
a remedy where otherwise there would be a failure 
of justice. To perfect what his predecessors had 
begun, the late learned and amiable Chief Justice of 
Pennsylvania, lent all the resources of his well dis- 
ciplined and discriminating mind. Without enter- 
taining any wild and chimerical notions of equity, 
inconsistent with the general doctrines of a technical 

D 



^2 

science, he strove to attain all the advantages while 
he studied to avoid the imperfections, resulting from 
the separation of the two tribunals. In reserving the 
application of equity to those anomalous cases which 
the general law did not seem to contemplate, or to 
which it had denied a remedy, he has attempted the 
erection of a structure laid upon the most solid and 
broad foundations. It only remains that the distin- 
guished individuals who survive him upon the bench, 
or who have been subsequently appointed, shall pro- 
secute what has been so nobly begun, and nothing 
can prevent its attaining the ultimate end of all law 
— the dispensation of substantial justice. 

But it is not merely the civil branch of our juris- 
prudence upon which we can dwell with complacen- 
cy. Our criminal system has undergone revision and 
amendment, and presents in its punitory features a 
spectacle which is certainly pleasing^ when compar- 
ed with the sanguinary inflictions which at once de- 
form and disgrace the European codes. I would not 
be understood as attributing the origin of this re- 
formation to the revolution, for mild punishments 
have always been acceptable to Pennsylvania, and 
existed from the settlement of tlie province to the 
year 1718, Upon the death of Penn the vindictive 
rigour of the English penalties was substituted for a 
code, the lenient provisions of which excluded the 
punishment of death from all offences except the most 



23 

flagitious grade of felonious homicide. Soon after 
the authority of the mother country winch imposed 
this odious system upon her infant charge, was abo- 
lished, the legislature complied with an injunction 
of the Constitution of 1776, touching the mitigation 
of her penal enactments. The act of 1786, besides 
assuaging the punishment of crimes which were not 
capital before, and removing the penalty from three 
high offences, rescinded those foul provisions of Bri- 
tish law which denounced confiscation for death by 
casualty, and the forfeiture of the estate of a/e/o dese. 
The humane clemency of this law was not only pre- 
served in the succeeding acts of 1790 and 91, which 
accelerated the work of reform so propitiously ad- 
vanced, but the latter, with a laudable boldness and 
praiseworthy liberality, struck from existence the ri- 
diculous crime of conjuration, and the barbarous pro- 
ceedings of the law of England in cases of muteness 
and contumacy. For the purpose of aiding the legis- 
lature with the voice of experience, a legal gentleman 
well fitted for the task, was appointed to report upon 
the operation of the mild laws which had already been 
enacted. The report presenting such a mass of facts 
in reference to the diminution of crime, and pervaded 
as it was by philosophical remarks upon the legiti- 
mate objects of punishment, elicited the great revo- 
lutionary statute of 1794, which changed the whole 
aspect of our penal jurisprudence. The unwarrant- 
able distinction between petit treason and ordinary 



24 

murder was stricken from the statute-book, and death 
was reserved for that felonious atrocity which is 
displayed in the commission of deliberate and pre- 
meditated homicide.* Recent circumstances have 
shown that, notwithstanding the inefficacy of this 
kind of retribution as a remedy; its repugnance 
to the sentiments of the people; and the great exam- 
ple of the Duke of Tuscany, in whose dominions it 
is repealed; our legislature is not prepared to efface 
the blot from our code. But it must not be forgotten 
that those improvements in our penitentiary disci- 
pline, vvliich have led to an abridgment in the terms 
of incarceration, suggest additional reasons for the 
abolition of so odious and revolting a punishment. 

As a consequence of this penal reform, at once 
concomitant and inevitable, the economy of prison 
police, claimed early and lively attention. After in- 
tense labour and large expenditure, philanthropists 
have been gratified with the recognition of the prin- 
ciple of total seclusion in the erection of buildings de- 
voted to this object. A history of the efforts made to 
accomplish this great undertaking, and the distrust 
which is still manifested in relation to its ultimate ef- 
fects, would furnish an instructive commentary upon 
those tendencies of the human mind to adhere to opi- 
nions founded upon a plausible theory, or recommend- 
ed by a high antiquity. The plan of separate con- 
finement originated with ^'The Philadelphia Society 

* Vide Note 3, in the Appendix. 



25 

for alleviating the miseries of Public Prisons,''' whose 
birth was so early as 1776; but the prosecution of its 
benevolent designs being obstructed by the British 
army, it languished till 1787, when it was re-organ- 
ized under the title which it still retains. The 
perseverance of the beneficent Howard in so unin- 
viting a sphere, is not more remarkable than the 
indefatigable philanthropy by which the members of 
this association have ever been animated and dis- 
tinguished. Many of the meliorations in our crimi- 
nal polity are justly attributable to their exertions, 
as well as that improvement in prison discipline to 
which I advert. — For the purpose of ascertaining the 
nature and importance of the alterations which were 
from time to time introduced, as well as the charac- 
ter of what is now accomplished, it is indispensable 
to refer to the old system in vogue. Under the san- 
guinary code of Great Britain it was thought unne- 
cessary to devote much attention to the internal 
economy of prisons, since, to great numbers of their 
inmates, they were merely anti-chambers to the gal- 
lows. To many they were places of very temporary 
residence — the sojournment of a few brief nights. 
The unfortunate, but perhaps respectable debtor; 
the depraved and abandoned felon ; the young de- 
linquent; the hardened offender; and all, without 
distinction of crime or sex; were immured in a close 
and corrupting assemblage. The only consequences 
of an intercourse so promiscuous, unnatural, and dis- 



26 

gusting, were the increase of guilt and the destruc- 
tion of innocence. Though the advantages of com- 
plete separation, of entire solitude, were perceived 
at an early period, the Society was satisfied with the 
removal of the debtors, the separation of the sexes, 
and the classification of the prisoners, according to 
their ages, and the turpitude of their offences. These 
alterations, and others of minor magnitude, were ac- 
complished by the several Acts of Assembly passed 
in 1786, ^90, and '95. Posterior statutes for the 
erection of a Bridewell, and the slight modifications 
in prison police, all looked with an unwavering eye 
to the great object of hard labour and unmitigated 
privacy. It was not until the year 1818, that the 
legislature recognized the principle of solitary con- 
finement, by appropriating money for a penitentiary 
upon that basis, for the western extremity of the 
state. That penitentiary, and the one commenced in 
the year 1821, at Philadelphia, are now in success- 
ful operation, silently eloquent by their effects in re- 
moving the doubts of the timorous, and demolishing 
the fallacies of the unfriendly. A paramount diffi- 
culty which the adherents of solitary confinement en- 
countered, was, to defend it against the advocates of 
the Auburn prison at New York — a plan which is 
borrowed from the Maison de Force of the Nether- 
lands, and which has received from its friends in 
Europe the most unqualified approval. While it may 
be admitted to be superior to the European establish- 



27 

ments, and possessing recommendations of an impos- 
ing order, it need not be concealed that in some of 
its features it is opposed to the spirit of Pennsylvania 
policy, and that the adoption of it here would have 
been a positive retrogression. The discipline is en- 
forced by severe flagellation, inflicted for the slight- 
est violation of prison law, which prohibits all ocular 
and oral communication among the prisoners. Ac- 
cordingtothe practice in Pennsylvania, ever since the 
year 1794, the intercourse had not been constant but 
occasional, since confinement to solitary cells had form- 
ed a portion of almost every judicial sentence. The 
ignominy of corporal correction, so revolting to the 
natural sensibilities, and so inimical to the genius of 
our institutions, was abandoned with disgust by our 
legislature, as early as 1795. As the prevention of 
intercourse at Auburn is proved to be impracticable 
by its continuance in the face of the most relentless 
rigour, the scheme was believed to have defects which 
we sought to obviate, and to possess but the single 
advantage of separate dormitories over the old one 
prevailing in Pennsylvania. The experience of 
nearly two years, during which period the Eastern 
Penitentiary has been the recipient of convicts, has 
been shown, from abundant testimony, to justify 
the sanguine predictions of its friends. The mental 
power remains unaffected by privacy, except that 
the heart is chastened and the passions are subdued. 
The health is invigorated, and industry confirmed 



28 

by toil volautarily pursued to beguile the tedium and 
drive away the ennui, inseparable from idle seclu- 
sion. As the persons of the unfortunate criminals 
are unknown to each other, no obstacle upon en- 
largement, can prevent the establishment of charac- 
ter, nor the reduction into practice of those virtuous 
resolutions which were suggested and formed in the 
retirement of solitude.* 

But the historian of Pennsylvania will not mere- 
ly do justice to her prowess, patriotism, and suffer- 
ings during an eventful era, and illustrate the 
symmetry of her political form, her civil jurispru- 
dence, her criminal code, and penitentiary disci- 
pline — but with a more comprehensive eye he will 
survey the peculiarities of her physical and mental 
condition as displayed in the facilities presented for 
internal commerce and the conveniences of life — in 
the refinement of manners and cultivation of literature 
and the arts. He will look abroad for those exhibi- 
tions of enterprise or indications of sloth, those 
monuments of taste or memorials of barbarism, which 
lie scattered over the physical surface in the forms 
of thoroughfares, improvements, and pursuits ; or 
are buried in the maxims upon which social conduct 
is regulated, and the various performances emitted 
from the press. This opens to a liberal mind a wide 

* See Note 4, in the Appendix. 



29 

field for bold conjecture and philosophical commen- 
tary. It must try, to their utmost tension, the pow- 
ers of description and narrative, and put in requisi- 
tion all the resources of study and thought. In at- 
tempting a rude sketch of the extensive region he 
must explore, I can only exhibit some faint concep- 
tions of the scene which may be drawn by a compe- 
tent pencil upon a larger canvass. 

The physical arts which administer to the neces- 
sities and conveniences of life, are pursued with ar- 
dour and success in all their diversities. From the 
manufacture of the simplest instrument of labour up 
to the great designs of architecture and ship-build- 
ing, the ingenuity of our mechanics and artists sug- 
gests a theme for the proudest eulogy. Those por- 
tions of the soil which present inequalities of sur- 
face, and are not teeming with vegetable esculents, 
abound in rich and precious minerals. In a country 
whose territory is so extensive, and whose sources of 
wealth lie in distant places and almost impervious 
tracts, it seemed necessary that nature should be as- 
sisted by the exertions of genius and art. To give 
these facilities the internal improvemenU of the 
state were commenced, and to her may be ascribed 
the distinguished honour of having expended more 
than any state in the Union in these improve- 
ments, and of setting a splendid example in 
the construction of turnpikes and bridges, of ca- 



30 

*■ 

nals and rail-ways. It has been estimated that since 
the year 1791, the disbursements of the trea- 
sury and of corporations for these objects, have 
amounted to about 37,000,000 of dollars. Since the 
year 1792, 168 companies have been incorporated 
for the purpose of constructing turnpikes, and it has 
been calculated that passable roads have been made 
by these societies to the extent of about 3000 miles. 
The first turnpike commenced in the Union is said 
to be that which extends from Philadelphia to Lan- 
caster, and by its connection with roads subsequent- 
ly made, a cuntiiiuous line of turnpike now extends 
from Trenton upon the Delaware to Steubenville in 
Ohio. The cost of this thoroughfare which stretches 
a distance of 343 miles, including the bridges on the 
way, has been ascertained to transcend the celebrat- 
ed road of Napoleon over the Simplon. The number 
and superiority of the bridges of Pennsylvania, have 
given rise to the appellation, ^The State of bridges.' 
Upwards of 70 corporations exist in different 
sections of the state, and by those which have gone 
into operation, 63 bridges* have been erected at an 
expense exceeding 83,000,000. Of all the struc- 
tures of this kind in America, the Permanent Bridge 
over the Schuylkill at Philadelphia, erected by a so- 
ciety incorporated in 1798, is the most substantial 
and magnificent. The foundation of the western pier 
is laid more than 40 feet below the level of the river's 
surface — a depth surpassing any bridge of modern 

* See Appendix, Note 5. 



31 

times. It may be observed that the introduction of 
chain bridges into Europe^ where they have wonder- 
fully multiplied, was induced by the success of a 
novel enterprise undertaken in 1816, by Messrs. 
White and Hazard, who suspended a bridge com- 
posed of iron wires over the Schuylkill, in the form 
of a catenary curve. The idea of facilitating com- 
munication in Pennsylvania by means of canals, 
though not carried into execution until after the 
revolution, was suggested by the genius of her 
Founder. With a sagacity which nothing could 
elude, Penn discovered the feasibility and foresaw 
the importance of connecting ^by water' the river 
Susquehanna with a branch of the Schuylkill. The 
suggestion is the more remarkable since at that early 
period canals and turnpikes were unknown in Great 
Britain. The distinction of introducing the subject 
of canals to public attention has been conferred 
upon Pennsylvania by a writer of very respectable 
authority.* Without mooting the question whether 
the completion of any of these undertakings was 
anterior to all others in the United States, it is suf- 
ficient to mention as some evidence of the spirit 
which animated Pennsylvania, that David Ritten- 
house and Dr. Wm. Smith in 1762 levelled and 
surveyed the route for that communication by water 
which has since been accomplished by the Union 
Canal; and that the Philosophical Society in 1764 
ordered a survey for a canal to connect the waters 
* Appendix, Note 6. 



32 

of the Chesapeake and Delaware. The projectors 
of the former work entertained views of the most 
imposing and gigantic description. They had the 
boldness to contemplate a junction of the eastern and 
western waters of Lake Erie and of the Ohio and De- 
laware, a distance of 580 miles, — opposed as was the 
project by the intervention of the Alleghany moun- 
tains, and by the difficulties of penetrating the almost 
illimitable wilds of the great valley of the Ohio and 
Mississippi. In the year 1791, about a century af- 
ter the idea of water communication had been started 
by Penn, the actual commencement may be dated of 
those daring projects in Pennsylvania, which now 
intersect and unite almost every important part of 
the country. The first act passed in America for 
the construction of a railway, was that by our legis- 
lature in granting permission to Mr. Stevens and 
others to connect Columbia on the Susquehanna with 
Philadelphia. This enterprise, which the state has 
completed in consequence of its abandonment by the 
individuals to whom the authority was given for its 
execution, was only the precursor of others which 
shall connect, by a continuous railway, the Delaware 
with the Ohio and the lakes. 

This reference, meagre as it is, to the practical ca- 
pabilities of Pennsylvania, and the liberality which 
has marked her career in public improvements, fur- 
nishes some index to the manners and intellectual 



33 

condition of her people. It is a subject of surprise 
and regret, that an opinion so erroneous should pre- 
vail in some of tlie other states of the union in rela- 
tion to her character in both. Is it not a solecism to 
suppose thata legislature whose history is distinguish- 
ed by undertakings so vast, and expenditures so daring, 
should have no intrinsic greatness of materials ? Is 
it reasonable to imagine that the people from whom 
its members must emanate, and from whom is prima- 
rily derived the conception of enterprises so glorious, 
have no mental elevation, no sound intelligence? If 
the principle be just, that the tree is known by its 
fruits, the character of our state should be exalted in 
a judicious estimation far beyond that of her revilers. 
The ignorance which is imputed to the state at large 
is a partial ignorance of the English language among 
that handful of a worthy race in the interior of Penn- 
sylvania, so respectable for their industry and lauda- 
ble for their virtues. As the purposes of life require 
that there should be ' hewers of wood and drawers 
of water,' so in contributing to the public weal by 
the fulfilment of their lots as plodding farmers or la- 
borious artizans, they merit the encomiums as they 
must receive the respect of patriots. 

Upon a comparison of the number of newspapers 
now published in the state with what were issued at 
the revolution and are now printed abroad, we shall 
find that the common mind of Pennsylvania cannot 



34 

languish or decay for want of a generous sustentation. 
Between the settlement of the province and the year 
1775, there had sprung into heing about sixteen 
newspapers in the English and German languages, 
but few of these were destined long to illuminate the 
colony. Lights which shone vividly for a time, were 
soon extinguished for want of the necessary aliment, 
and these were succeeded by others which, after dis- 
pensing a flickering and momentary glare, were des- 
tined in their turn to go out for ever. It was seldom, 
and for brief periods, that more than three or four 
existed simultaneously, and from 1762 to 1773 only 
three papers were circulated at Philadelphia. Ac- 
cording to Thomas's History of Printing, the year 
1775 gave birth to five newspapers and a magazine; 
but the war suspended or terminated the publication 
of the latter and two of the papers — a third was de- 
stroyed by fire — and of the two remaining;, one sur- 
vived till 1778 and the other finished its career in 
four years afterward. The magazine is pronounced to 
have been meritorious for the character of its literary 
contents, though its principal contributor was a per- 
sonage neither greater norless than the notoriousTho- 
mas Paine. But that age was not without luminaries 
of a superior order. Dickinson, to whose ' Farmer's 
Letters,' Ramsay ascribes the impulse of the revolu- 
tion, Rittenhouse, Franklin, Rush, Evving, Hopkin- 
son and Galloway, formed a constellation of no ordi- 
nary magnitude. They surrounded that day with a 



35 

splendour, and gave to it a celebrity which must ever 
reflect a brightness upon Pennsylvania.* To enable 
us to ascertain with some little precision the charac- 
ter of our intellectual advancement, we must take 
into consideration the condition of a new country, re- 
quiring the application of its energies to subjects un- 
congenial with erudite researches and literary suc- 
cess. Though many of the writers, who have since 
acquired distinction, flourished during the revolu- 
tion, and may be classed with either division, I may 
perhaps be justified in referring to Parke, Gray don, 
Samuel Stanhope Smith, West, Fulton, Dennie, 
Linn, Brown, and Godman, as authors and geniuses 
who belong more particularly to a subsequent period. 
So many circumstances may operate adversely to the 
display of great powers in literature — the diversion 
of the public mind to practical objects, and a tempo* 
rary indifi"erence in the public taste to the elegancies 
of literary composition — that an entire destitution 
of eminent men should furnish no criterion of the na- 
tional intellect. The commanding eminence of the 
bench and bar of Pennsylvania, the learning and 
acuteness which have marked the medical profession, 
the erudition and eloquence of the clergy, the high 
estimation of our various seats of learning, and above 
all the unrivalled reputation of a great medical uni- 
versity, indicate no dearth of talents, no want of de- 
votion to study. Public libraries are to be found, 

* See Note 7, in the Appendix. 



36 

perhaps, in every county of the state, and the athe- 
naeums established in petty villages, evince a diffusive 
zeal for knowledge and an ardour of liberal inquiry, 
to which it is difficult to point out a parallel. Among 
the literary institutions of the United States, the 
Philadelphia Library, and the American Philosophi- 
cal Society, deserve a prominent station, if indeed, 
they be not altogether unrivalled and transcendant. 
The library which, in its inception and early pro- 
gress, had to struggle with very restricted and even 
contemptible resources, has assumed a magnitude 
which in the number and value of its books, surpass- 
es any collection on this side the Atlantic. Though 
its existence was so early as 1731,* the number of its 
volumes in 1785 did not exceed 5,487. In 1806 
they amounted to 14,218, showing an augmentation 
in twenty-one years of 8,731 books; and in the twen- 
ty-five years which have since elapsed the amount 
is more than quadruple — the number being now esti- 
mated at more than 37,000 volumes. A cursory in- 
spection of the voluminous catalogue will suffice to 
discover the character of its ingredients, and to 
exhibit in its contents as well the rarest gems of an- 
tiquity as many of the useful and elegant productions 
of all nations of modern and subsequent times. 
The American Philosophical Society was originally 
established at Philadelphia in the year 1743, and 
formed a junction in 1769 with another literary 

* See Note 8. 



37 

association of similar objects and design.* Though 
at first devoted to the natural and mathematical 
sciences, it now embraces in its circle of investigations 
the antiquities, topography, geography, statistics, 
and history of the state and country. Little need 
be said of an institution which can display in im- 
posing succession upon its scroll of Presidents, 
such names as Franklin, Rittenhouse, Jefferson, 
Wistar, Patterson, Tilghman and Duponceau. The 
ten volumes of Transactions published, including 
the volume which has been issued by the Com- 
mittee of History, demonstrate an ardour of lite- 
rary enterprize and a depth of research, a plenitude 
of mind and a variety and profundity of attainment, 
which reflect the highest credit upon the country. 
The contributions of Franklin and Rittenhouse, of 
Dr. Smith and Francis Hopkinson, are characterized 
by a native amplitude of soul, capable of adding 
to that science which looks into tlie sublime and 
awful mysteries of nature, a comprehensiveness of 
conception and a boldness of discovery, which lie 
beyond the grasp of the narrow, the timorous, and 
the weak. But, undazzled by the splendour of a 
philosophy which penetrated into tlie immeasurable 
regions of the planets and the countless wonders of 
the galaxy, and that which subjected to human con- 
troul the terrific lightnings of heaven, let us be just 
to the more homely, but not less practical monu- 

* Note 9. 
P 



38 

ments erected by patient thought and sedulous read= 
ing. It is to these fruits of genius and toil, we are 
indebted for the speculations of a learned and inge- 
nious philologist, which unfold to us the amazing 
beauty and very artificial structure of the Indian 
idioms, and which plausibly exhibit perhaps con- 
clusively prove, that the red men of the American 
forests, however separated by distance and marked 
by contrariety of habits, are united by the relation- 
ship of a common ancestry — by the ties of an identi- 
cal origin. If, before and during the revolution, 
Pennsylvania could boast, in this institution, of a 
Godfrey born, and a Franklin educated and adopted, 
we may yet claim a Rittenhouse, a Wistar, a Patter- 
son, a Tilghman, and a Godman — not to mention 
many eminent survivors, contemporary with that il- 
lustrious grmip. 

Taking the relative number of periodical works 
as a guide by which to estimate our advancement 
or recession, we have every reason to be satisfied 
with our lot — every inducement for the indulgence 
of national complacency. In the year 1775, in- 
cluding the periodicals which then had commence- 
ment with those which existed antecedently, the 
aggregate number of published sheets and maga- 
zines did not exceed ni7ie. In 1810, they had in- 
creased to seventy -one, and in 1828 they amounted 
to one hundred and eighty-five, a number greatly 



39 

exceeding the ratio of augmented population, and 
more than equal to any two states in the Union, with 
the exception of New York. The number of literary 
works annually published at Philadelphia, not only 
transcends that of any other city in the Union, but is 
estimated to be nearly equal to tliem all united. 
These comprehend native works, and reprints of that 
endless variety of productions with which the Eu- 
ropean press is teeming, from the lightest novel and 
poetry of the day, up to the most daring reaches of 
philosophy and the nicest points of philology and 
criticism. The reasonable proportion of these upon 
music and the fine arts, attests the tendencies of the 
public taste, and indicates that stage in the educated 
mind when it has received the last impress and 
polish of refinement. It argues that beauty of men- 
tal perception and exquisite delicacy of feeling, which 
are connected with elegance of manners, and the 
highest culture of the understanding. 

Though it forms no part of the business of an his- 
torian, in recording past and present events, to look 
forward to the future, we may not deny to ourselves 
the pleasure of contemplating in prospect the high 
destiny to which Pennsylvania is hastening. Unos- 
tentatiously she has been constructing a system of 
politics and jurisprudence founded upon the rights of 
man and the true interests of human nalurcj the as- 
perities of a wilderness have been smoothed — its 



40 

wildncss subdued; and her skill, her resources, and 
her talents, are in a course of development by the 
application of means the most judicious, because the 
most easy and natural. Eschewing those follies in 
civil jurisprudence, and those abuses in criminal 
punishment, which had their origin in the dark and 
barbarous ages of Europe, and disdaining all shackles 
upon liberty but those imposed by reason and nature, 
what can prevent the attainment of that mental keen- 
ness and moral elevation, which effect such glorious 
triumphs and produce such superior results? If 
the other states who are behind, shall be emulous of 
her high example, this confederacy may disclose to 
the world, if not the military achievements of Greece 
and Rome, at least the peaceful virtues by which 
they must ever inspire the admiration of posterity. 
Shall I be told that the anticipation is too flattering? 
Is there a probability that it will prove illusive ? 
No: while the old world is sinking down the politi- 
cal and intellectual horizon, beneath the accumulated 
weight of years and of vices, America may be seen 
rising from her ruins, fresh as the morning and tow- 
ering as the eagle, to run her race of virtue and of 
glory ! 



APPENDIX. 



(Note 1. p. 10.) — William Penn has very laconically 
but clearly expressed the belief of his sect upon the sub- 
ject of government, in his second reply to a committee of 
the House of Lords, appointed in 1678. "First," says 
he, " we believe Government to be God's Ordinance; and 
next, that this present government is established by the 
Providence of God and law of the land, and that it is our 
Christian duty readily to obey it in all its just laws; and where- 
in we cannot comply, through tenderness of conscience, in 
all such cases, not to revile or conspire against the govern- 
ment, but with Christian humility and patience tire out all 
mistakes against us, and wait their better information, who, 
we belive, do as undeservedly as severely treat us; and I 
know not what greater security can be given by any peo- 
ple, or how any government can be easier from the subjects 
of it." In conformity with these principles, and their tes- 
timony in relation to peace, Friends, during the progress of 
the revolution, instituted examinations into the conduct of 
their members, and all who were found to take part either 
with the Americans on the one side, or with the British on 
the other, were without exception disowned. For the pur- 
pose of showing the sentiments upon this subject, of an en- 
lightened foreigner who travelled through this country in 
the year 1788, 1 translate from a book entitled, "Nouvcau 
Voyage dans les Etats-unis dc I'Amerique Septentrion- 
ale fait en 1788; par J. P. Brissot (Warvillc,) Citoyen 
Fran(;ais," certain portions of long passages which arc unac- 
countably omitted in the English translation of that work, 



42 

published at London in 1792. I need not apologise for the 
length of the following passages which I translate. 

" It was at this epoch, particularly (a cette epoque surtout, 
meaning the revolution,) that an animosity was excited 
against them (the Quakers) which is not yet entirely allay- 
ed. Faithful to their religious principles, they declared 
they could take no part in the war, and disowned or ex- 
communicated every member of their Society, who either 
served in the American troops or British army. I must 
confess that thoroughly assured of that sacred and divine 
principle which authorises armed resistance to oppression, 
and entirely convinced that here the oppression was mani- 
fest, I could not avoid blaming the neutrality preserved by 
the Quakers whilst their brethren were struggling for the 
acquisition of independence. But notwithstanding my 
principles, I do not the less think that the violent persecu- 
tion of the Quakers for their pacific neutrality was essen- 
tially wrong. 

" If their refusal had been the first of this kind; if it had 
been only dictated by their attachment to the British cause; 
if it had only served them to conceal the secret proofs which 
they might have given of this attachment; certainly they 
had been culpable and perhaps persecution had been lawful. 
But this neutrality was enjoined upon them by the religi- 
ous opinions which they profess and have practised from 
their origin. But exclusive of this, whatever prejudiced or 
ill informed writers may have asserted, the truth, which I 
have taken great pains to obtain, is, that the majority of 
the Quakers did not incline more to one party than to the 
other, did good indifferently to both, and in fact to all those 
who stood in need of assistance. If some of the society of 
Quakers served in the British army, there were some like- 
wise who served in the American army — and amongst 
others may be mentioned the names of the Generals Green^ 
Mifflm, and Lacy, but the society excommunicated indif- 
ferently all those who took up arms. * * * * * * 



43 

" I have heard no one speak with more impartiality of the 
Quakers than this celebrated man (alluding to Washington,) 
whose spirit of justice is particularly remarkable. He ac- 
knowledged to me that in the course of the war, he had 
entertained an unfavourable opinion of the society; he 
in fact knew little of them, because at that period there 
were but few members of this sect in Virginia. He at- 
tributed to their political sentiments what was the effect of 
their religious principles. When he encamped in Chester 
County, principally inhabited by Quakers, he supposed 
himself to be in an enemy's country, as he could not in- 
duce a single Quaker to act for him in the character of a 
sp)^ But not one served as a spy against him in the em- 
ploy of the British army. 

*' You will nevertheless find a fact contrary to this asser- 
tion advanced by the detractors of the Quakers; but the 
source of their error is easily discovered. As the Quakers 
frequently travelled through the midst of both armies with- 
out passports, and as they were ultimately looked upon 
without umbrage by both, the spies, to transact their busi- 
ness with more safety, disguised themselves in the dress pe- 
culiar to Quakers. Many were hung in this habit, and from 
hence arose their accusation against the Friends. 

" General Washington having since better understood the 
spirit of the Society, concludes by esteeming them. He 
acknowledged to me that on considering the simplicity of 
their manners, their fondness for economy, the excellence 
of their morals, and the good example they afforded, joined 
to the attachment they showed for the constitution, he re- 
garded them as the best citizens of the new government, 
which required a great degree of obedience and the banish- 
ment of luxury. 

" It was not under this point of view that they were consi- 
dered by the Congress who laid the foundation of Ameri- 
can Independence. Furious at the resistance which the 
Quakers opposed to them, they joined the people who per- 
secuted them; and it must bn allowed that they banished 



44 

without any foundation, to Stanton in Virginia, to the dis- 
tance of two hundred miles from their families, the heads 
of the Society who were the most offensive to them. Their 
defence was not heard and they submitted, &c." 



(Note 2. p. 17.) Perhaps the first act of any government 
admitting slaves to any thing like an equal participation in 
ordinary rights, is the law of Rhode Island, made in the 
1562. It pi'ohibits under a penalty the retention of slaves 
for a longer period than ten years, and requires them to be 
manumitted at the age of 24 if introduced into the colony 
before 14. When England, who has never very anxiously 
promoted the cause of liberty out of her own insular bound- 
ary, has cast a compassionating glance upon the West In- 
dies, and when the despotic government of Austria has 
proclaimed freedom to all slaves, not only those who tread 
her soil, but to those who stop in vessels within her har- 
bours, we may hope that human rights will one day be re- 
spected and acknowledged even throughout our republic. 
Slavery in the United States is more repulsive in its fea- 
tures than in any country of ancient times. The Helotes 
of Sparta were less the property of individuals thati of the 
Commonwealth; they were capable of acquiring estates; 
nnd could be enfranchised upon evidence of unmerciful 
treatment. In Crete, Egypt, and Rome, they had privileges 
which protected them from the tyranny of their masters. 
Among the Hebrews the Pentateuch required the liberation 
of a slave at the end of six years, and by the adoption of 
that part of the laws of Moses into the preamble to the 
code of Alfred, a longer period was prohibited among the 
Saxons. But with us the slave is completely subjected to 
the power of his legal owner — his servitude is intermina- 
ble — and he transmits his degradation and misery to his pos- 
terity for ever. 

While upon this subject it may not be improper to remove 
a charge affecting the fair fame of early Pennsylvania, but 



45 

more particularly the humane character of her Founder. I 
allude to his imputed, and no doubt, actual participation in 
the act of 1700, prescribing to negroes Si. peculiar trial and 
punishment. Those who have studied^Penn's civil polity 
and laws must sensibly feel any injustice that may be done 
to either, exalted as is the lawgiver in the estimation of 
most, above Lycurgus or Numa, Charlemagne or Alfred. 
A few words, therefore, may be pardoned, since without 
some explanation, it might be deemed not only at variance 
with his usual forbearance and characteristical clemency, but 
a feature of peculiar rigour in our domestic system of sla- 
very. 

A very slight reflection will convince us that this act of 
the provincial legislature originated in a benevolent desire 
to assuage the miseries of unqualified servitude. Slavery, 
with much of its arbitrary cruelty, prevailed in Pennsylva- 
nia at that early period. Though the belief was formally 
expressed in 1696 by a few persons, that the institution was 
unjust, we may suppose the opinion neither universally ob- 
tained, nor greatly mitigated the hardships to which ne- 
groes had been exposed by the prevalence of a difierent 
doctrine. They were still subjected to the power of their 
unrelenting superiors — not merely as the ministers of a 
fickle and varying volition, but as the victims of a sore and 
oppressive tyranny. Notwithstanding the solicitude of 
many, and the active guardianship of some, in regard to 
their physical welfare, they seem, in particular cases, to have 
sufiered from their unfeeling masters, thus constituted the 
absolute disposers of their happiness — the potent and uncon- 
trolled arbiters of their destiny. 

In bondage thus hopeless and unlimited, they became de- 
praved in morals and low in intellect. To soften their hard 
fate, Penn was willing to substitute the provisions of legis- 
lative authority for the invidiousness of arbitrary or person- 
al caprice — in a word, to restrain by legal prescription those 
who had defied it. Hence his acquiescence in the act of 
1700. Though in its features it accorded with the erro- 

G 



46 

neous opinions which prevailed respecting the ingenerate"^ 
depravity of negroes, and the necessity of subjecting them 
to severe inflictions, it was intended to be and actually 
proved beneficial to their interests. In effect it palsied the 
uplifted arm of a cruel and despotic master by interposing 
the shield of legislative uniformity and certainty. That a 
regard to their welfare was the principle upon which it was 
ratified, is evident from the anxiety of Penn to alleviate 
their physical discomforts, and to arouse their moral and re- 
ligious sensibilities. His efforts to engage in their behalf 
the more lively sympathy of Friends in a monthly meeting 
held at Philadelphia,* and his presentation of a bill to the 
assembly ' for regulating negroes in their morals and mar- 
riages,'! — both in the year 1700 — bear emphatic testimony 
to the philanthropy which dictated, and the motives which 
induced his concurrence in the act referred to, since it was 
presented to the assembly in the same year and about the 
same period. 



(Note 3. p. 24. ) — The distinction of murder into degrees 
was introduced into Pennsylvania by the act of 1794, and 
has subsequently found favour with Louisiana, Maryland, 
Ohio, Virginia, and perhaps some other states. The honour 
of originating it is perhaps ascribable to William Bradford, 
Esq. successively a federal Judge and Attorney-general of 
the United States and of this state, who wrote his ' Enqui- 
ry' in the year 1793. The penalty of death is affixed only 
to murder of the first degree which consists in the inten- 
tion to kill, manifested by circumstances, or the use of a 
mortal weapon with malice prepense or aforethought; or 
in the attempt to perpetrate arson, or other heinous offences 
enumerated in the act. If the intention be not to termin- 
ate life but merely the infliction of some great corporal in- 
jury, the offence is reduced to murder of the second degree, 

* Proud's History of Pennsylvania, Vol. 1. p. 423, 
j Gordon's History of Pennsylvania, p. 115, 



47 

an offence which is punished in Pennsylvania by imprison- 
ment. 



(Note 4. p. 2S.) — The eastern penitentiary received its 
first prisoner on the 25th of October 1829, and according to 
Dr. Bache's letter to Roberts Vaux, Esq. written a year ago, 
the average number of inmates for the previous six months 
might be stated at 32. Br. Bache, whose professional con- 
nection with the prison enables him to speak with confi- 
dence and authority, says that ''the entire seclusion of 
criminals from all association with their fellow criminals, 
is altogether compatible with their profitable employment 
at useful trades, and with the preservation of health." As 
Roscoe and La Fayette, the Prison Society of Boston and 
friends of Auburn, have united their voices against the hu- 
manity of the system of solitary labour, a very brief ex- 
tract from Dr. Bache's letter referring to the treatment and 
conveniences of the prisoner, may be pardoned." "The 
criminal is placed in a room, well warmed and ventilated, 
quite adequate in dimensions for the sleeping and working 
apartment of one person, as it contains more than thirteen 
hundred cubic feet of space. He is furnished with sufficient 
clothing and a good bed, with wholesome but coarse food, 
and with the means of keeping his person neat and clean; 
"and he enjoys the privilege, whenever the weather is fa- 
vourable, of exercising one hour daily in his exercising 
yard. He is furnished besides with work, &c." This ac- 
count comprises every peculiarity of his condition, except 
that he has frequent intercourse with his keeper, and with 
moral and religious persons, besides having access to suita- 
ble books. The intercourse between the criminal and those 
individuals who are permitted to approach him, is not in- 
consistent with such a species of solitude as is necessary to 
amendment. The society of his fellow prisoners is prohi- 
bited less for the purpose of punishment than because it 
will prove injurious to his moral health, and be subversive 
of the design to make him a useful member of society. Is 



48 

there a hope of future effort from that offender whose name 
is known and whose infamy is notorious among his fellow 
prisoners ? Where will he seek refuge from the pos- 
sibility of a visit from his fellow convicts and the conse- 
quent ruin of his credit for probity? The consciousness 
of a blasted character will paralize the virtue that would re- 
deem it. The number of inmates since the correspondence 
between Mr. Vaux and Dr. Bache has been gradually in- 
creasing, and now amounts to 77. Neither insanity 
nor detriment to health has yet been discoverable, but on 
the contrary, not a case of mental ailment and few of 
bodily sickness have occurred. 

The notion of the great expense attending the mode of 
treatment, for which Roberts Vaux contended in the con- 
troversial discussion between him and William Roscoe of 
Liverpool, is very satisfactorily shown to be erroneous. I 
quote from Mr. Vaux's first letter: 

"By separate confinement, other advantages of an eco- 
nomical nature will result; amongst these may be mention- 
ed a great reduction of the terms of imprisonment: for, in- 
stead of from three to twenty years, and sometimes longer, 
as many months, excepting for very atrocious crimes, will 
answer all the ends of retributive justice and penitential ex- 
perience, which on the actual plan, the greatest detention 
in prison altogether fails to accomplish. — Besides this abate- 
ment of expense in maintaining prisoners, very few keep- 
ers will be required on the new system, and as the females 
should be entrusted wholly to the custody of suitable indi- 
viduals of their own sex, their services can of course be se- 
cured for less compensation than men. Such of the 
prisoners as may be employed, will necessarily labour alone, 
and the kinds of business in which they will be engaged, 
not being rough and exposing as those now adopted, the 
expenditure for clothing must be much diminished. On 
the score of cost, therefore, if that, indeed, bean object in a 
work of this magnitude, the solitary plan recommends itself 



49 

to the regard of the public economist. But the problem of 
expense in my opinion, can only he truly solved, by 
showing the cheapest m,ethod of keeping prisoners to be, 
that which is most likely to reform them, to deter others 
by the imposing character of the punishment, from prey- 
ing upon the honest and unoffending members of socie- 
ty, afterwards involving heavy judicial costs to establish 
their guilt — and becoming at last a charge to the coun- 
try as co7ivicted felons." 



(Note 5. p. 30.) — The county bridges are not included in 
this estimate. Some have been constructed at an expense 
of from 30 to 40, and even 60,000 dollars. 



(Note 6. p. 31.) — Reference is made in the text to George 
Washington Smith, Esq. whose minute and extensive ac- 
quaintance with the internal improvements of the country, 
is well known. He uses the following language in his 
* Notes, &c.' published in the first volume of Hazard's Re- 
gister, on the subject of Pennsylvania's first interesting the 
public mind upon turnpike roads and canals. 

"Numerous letters are extant which are peculiarly inte- 
resting, not merely from the character of their writers, but 
for the perfect originality of the views contained in them. 
They prove beyond all possibility of doubt, that the Union 
is indebted to Pennsylvania for the first introduction of 
canals and turnpikes to the public attention. It has been 
the policy of some other states, not only to assume to them- 
selves the credit of originating these means of commercial 
intercourse, but to add insult to injustice by ceaseless eflbrts 
to depreciate the enterprise of Pennsylvania in order to ex- 
alt their own reputation." 



(Note 7. p. 35.) — Several poets of inferior note are 
spoken of who lived about this time. David James Dove 
was a schoolmaster of Philadelphia and a dealer in the mi- 



50 

nor kind of satirical poetry. He taught about the period of 
the revolution, and is ludicrously introduced in a book en- 
titled ' The life and adventures of Chevalier Taylor, ' This 
Taylor be it remembered, is spoken of as a talker of Latin 
in Boswell's life of Johnson. 

Kinnesley was an English teacher and an Anabaptist Cler- 
gyman who lived about the same time, and from his devo- 
tion to electricity is thought to have contributed in no small 
degree to certain discoveries in the application of the prin- 
ciples of that science ascribed to Dr. Franklin. 

John Beveridge contemporary with these was a classical 
teacher, whose Latin poetry published in 1765 has been 
commended for the mechanical correctness of the versifica- 
tion, but it is deficient in all that constitutes poetry. He 
was mean enough to solicit of Thomas Penn, a few of the 
many acres which the proprietor possessed on the shores of 
the Delaware, reminding him that Ajax, ^neas, and Mae- 
cenas were immortalized by the strains of Homer, Virgil, and 
Horace. I quote the passage last alluded to in exemplifica- 
tion of the vanity which could suggest a parallel between 
the praises of those mighty geniuses and his own muse; 

" Quid foret jEneas, et magni nominis Ajax, 
Atque alii quorum sunt nomina multa virorum; 
Ni foret et vates divini carminis auctor 
Maeonides, sacro qui primus vertrce Pindi 
Deduxit faciles Phocbo plaudente, Camoenas? 

Vel quid Maecenas, animi mentisque benignae 
Ni benefacta sui celebrasset carmen Horati, 
Et Maro munificum cecinisset gratus amicum?" &c. &c. 

Some of the ushers of this pedagogue were superior to him- 
self. Patrick Alison, afterwards a Presbyterian Clergyman 
of Baltimore, of more than common reputation, James 
Wilson, afterwards a distinguished judge of the Supreme 
Court of the U. S. , and John Andrews, afterwards Doctor 
Andrews of the University of Pennsylvania. 



51 

(Note S. p. 36.)— The first Directors of the Philadelphia 
Library were Benjamin Franklin, "William Parsons, Thomas 
Godfrey, Thomas Cadwalader, Robert Grace, Thomas 
Hopkinson, Philip Syng, Jun., Anthony Nicholas, John 
Jones, Jun., and Isaac Pennington. They were appointed 
in November 1731. In 1777 the institution was enriched 
by the munificent bequest of the Hon. James Logan, with 
3944 volumes, most of them old authors of sterling merit. 
An act of the Legislature in 1791 annexed the Loganian to 
the Philadelphia Library, and the books were placed in the 
same building in May, 1794. 



(Note 9. p. 37.)—' The American Philosophical Society 
for promoting Useful Knowledge,' was formed by the^junc- 
tion of two societies, the one called ' The American Philo- 
sophical Society,' and the other 'The Junto, or Society for 
promoting Useful Knowledge.' The former was instituted 
in 1743, and the latter was in existence in 1758. I per- 
ceive that Dr. Mease in his excellent ' Picture of Philadel- 
phia,' has dated the origin of this society in 1766, but a mi- 
nute-book of proceedings is extant reaching so far back as 
1758, and it is probable the Junto had a still earlier com- 
mencement. The union was formed by combining the 
names of both associations, and exchanging lists of the mem- 
bers of each. The combination took place in December 
1768, and Dr. Franklin was elected first President of the 
united society. It was incorporated in 17S0. In 1816 a 
seventh committee on the history and antiquities of the state 
and country was added to those originally appointed, at the 
instance of the late Dr. Caspar Wistar. 

Before this discourse went to press I diligently searched, 
but in vain, for the minutes of the Philosophical Society 
before its junction with the Junto. It is believed that these 
minutes are not now in existence. A learned friend has 
just put into my hands the following letter from Dr. Frank- 



52 

lin to the Hon. Cadwallader Golden, of Coldenham, relat- 
ing to the first organization of the Society. By this letter 
it appears that the first President of the Philosophical So- 
ciety was Thomas Hopkinson, father of the celebrated 
Francis Hopkinson, and grandfather of the present Judge 
Hopkinson of Philadelphia. I am informed it was ori- 
ginally published in 1812, in Dr. Hosack's American Me- 
dical and Philosophical Register — there is no doubt about 
its being genuine. 

New York, April 5, 1744. 
Sir — Happening to be in this city about some particular 
affairs, I have the pleasure of receiving yours of the 28th, 
past, here; and can now acquaint you, that the Society, as 
far as it relates to Philadelphia, is actually formed, and has 
had several meetings to mutual satisfaction. As soon as I 
get home, I shall send you a short account of what has been 
done and proposed at these meetings. The members are: 

Dr. Thomas Bond, as Physician. 

Mr. John Bartram, as Botanist. 

Mr. Thomas Godfrey, as Mathematician. 

Mr. Samuel Rhodes, as Mechanician. 

Mr. William Parsons, as Geographer. 

Dr. Phineas Bond, as General Nat. Philosopher. 

Mr. Thomas Hopkinson, President. 

Mr. William Coleman, Treasurer. 

B. F , Secretary. 

To whom the following members have since been added, 
viz. Mr. Alexander, of New York; Mr. Morris, Ch. Jus- 
tice of the Jerseys; Mr. Home, Secretary of do. ; Mr. John 
Coxe, of Trenton, and Mr. Martyn, of the same place. 

Mr. Nicholls tells me of several other gentlemen of this 
city that incline to encourage the thing; and there are a 
number of others, in Virginia, Maryland, and the New- 
England Colonies, who we expect to join us, as soon as 
they are acquainted that the Society has begun to form 
itself. I am. Sir, with much repect, your most humble 
servant. B. FRANKLIN. 

The Hon. Cadwallader Colden, Esq. 



HBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 207 346 8 



